The Best Dessert

You can find the best desserts in Parfum, a cafe/restaurant on Ninomiya Park Street.

The main menu is good too; very nice homemade salad dressing on the green salad, nice soup, good main dishes, excellent coffee.











But the dessert? HEAVENLY! :) Last time I went there the dessert plate had homemade ice-cream and fruit (as usual) and the main sweet was an almond-orange tart. I think it is really hard to get good tarts, but this was one of the best I have ever had! The base was still really crispy which is difficult. (Tart bases usually become soggy after a few hours.) We also got a small sample of another dessert for free. It looked like a mini creme brulee - the top was toffeed sugar and when you broke through the cruncy toffee, you found wonderful creamy and fluffy egg pudding underneath .....









Just be careful because if you order the special daily lunch menu for less than 1000yen, you don't get dessert. You have to order a pasta lunch or fish lunch, etc. The prices range from about 1200yen to 1500yen but it is worth it to get the dessert!

By the way, they only serve lunch and dinner so you cannot go there for afternoon tea and just get dessert and coffee.

The Best Sushi

The best sushi in Tsukuba is Yamato Zushi on Nishi Odori, just north of Route 354.

It is 'kaiten sushi' (sushi that goes around on a conveyor belt) though the price is a little more expensive than family type kaiten sushi. BUT the fish is always delicious and the pieces are quite large. Because of the quality and size, I think Yamato is much better value than cheaper restaurants. And I've NEVER had anything that wasn't delicious.

The best dish is one fillet of sea eel (anago). Just wonderful! Oh, and if you go to Yamato, you can get set plates for a party or you can choose your own varieties and make up a special party plate just for you. Here is a plate that my husband and I made. The price is the same as if you ate in the shop. By the way, if you phone ahead to make an order, you must get one of the ready made plates from their take-out menu, so I recommend you go and choose your favourite things or the fish of the day.

Yummy Yogurt

I've just started making 'Kasupi Kai' yogurt again. (Capsian Sea)

I made it a few years ago but stopped because the taste became a little funny. Actually, as I got the starter culture from a friend, I was also worried about the purity of the bacteria at that time.

To give you some background, a professor of Kyoto University (Yukio Yamori) visited the former Soviet Union country of Georgia in 1986. He was studying longevity (people who live to become very old) and found Georgians ate a special kind of yogurt. He brought some back to study it, and then it seems his wife who is a doctor, gave some out. Over the years the yogurt was shared all over the country. Prof Yamori became worried about purity and safety so he set up a NPO to distribute dried culture starter kits.

One strange thing is that the yogurt comes from near the BLACK SEA not the Caspian Sea!!! Maybe 'black yogurt' wasn't such an attractive name ...

That was a few years ago, and now you can buy Kasupi Kai yogurt in supermarkets. I thought the taste wasn't as good as the homemade one, so last week I bought powdered starter culture from my local supermarket. It cost about 1, 200 yen! {For two sachets of culture plus about four sachets of powdered collagen which I haven't used.}

The main point about making the yogurt at home is keeping everything CLEAN!

Here is the process I follow:

1. Get two big clean glass jars with lids.
2. Boil water and sterilize the jars and lids with boiling water. Also sterilize a metal spoon.
3. Heat about 800ml of milk to 35 degrees C. (You can just put it in one jar and use the microwave to heat it to the exact temperature.) DO NOT put your finger in the milk to test the temperature!!! If you want to check, use the spoon to get some milk out and drip it on your wrist.
4. Starting - put one sachet of culture powder into the milk and stir.
Continuing - put about 200ml of yogurt in the milk and stir.
5. Put a tissue over the top of the jar and fasten with a rubber band. (The yogurt needs air to grow.)
6. Put the jar in a warm place, 20 - 30 degrees. It will take up to 24 hours for the milk to change into yogurt.
7. To check the progress, sterilize a spoon again and mix. When the yogurt is thick and 'sticky' it is ready.

NOTE: This yogurt is different from regular yogurt. The best I can describe is that the texture is 'sticky' kind of like liquid jelly!

If you want to make the yogurt faster, get a large foam box (like a drinks cooler or broccoli box) and put the jar of milk/yogurt in there with a hot water bottle! If you do this before bed, the yogurt will be ready the next morning. In summer you don't need to do this.

After the yogurt is finished, put about 200ml into the second clean jar and put on the lid. There is enough air in a big jar for the yogurt to live. Keep this to start your next batch of yogurt.

REMEMBER: Keep everything CLEAN!!!!!

Natural Alarm Clock

Well finally I could get a picture of my alarm clock!

Here he is about 8am this morning, though he woke me up before 6, as he always does.

Yes, it is the male pheasant I wrote about a few months ago. I see him almost every morning but it is quite difficult to get a picture of him. This morning he was foraging for food on the side of the rice field across from my house. I guess he was about 8m away. Sorry the picture isn't so nice - I had to take it through the fly screen. (I managed to open the glass window without him flying away, but the screen is much noisier.)

I've only seen the female once this season, when I startled her in my back garden and she flew away. She is a speckled brown color so is difficult to see at any time. Plus she is very quiet! Not like her mate who spent all morning from 6 - 10am walking about calling at intervals.

Just to explain the pictures:
1. This is him on the bank of the rice field (which is dry soil at the moment). He pecks the ground like a chicken looking for food, but looks around every few seconds. (Maybe he could 'feel' I was spying on him!)

2. I don't know why, but every now and then he puffs out his body, fluffs out his feathers and then calls 'keeen keeen'. Looking for his lady friend???

forage (食糧などを)捜す《 for... 》; 糧食徴発に出る, 捜し回る, あさる《 about, through... 》; 略奪する
fly screen 網戸
startle …をびっくりさせて
speckled 斑点（はんてん） *
mate （動物の）つがいの片方
at intervals 時々, 折々
bank (of river, etc)土手, 堤, 盛り土
peck 〈えさを〉ついばむ《 up 》 ;《略式》〈食べ物を〉たいぎそうに少しずつ食べる

* This translation is more like 'spotted', but 'speckled' is smaller spots and the colors blend together more.

Oarai (Big Wash!)

Oarai is a port about an hour north-east away by highway. I think the name is funny because the Chinese characters literally read 'big wash' :)

To be honest, Oarai is not so beautiful but there are many things to do. Something was added to that a few weeks ago when a new outlet shopping mall was opened. It is crowded now, but I can't help think that after a while people will get tired of it. Actually the design is quite nice and will be good in the warmer months. It is open plan, so it will be freezing in winter! It is right next to the Marine Tower which is the first triangular shaped glass tower I've seen.









I like Oarai Aquarium. There are many things to see but my favorite are the sea otters. It is a pity they only have two (or I only saw two) and they are in relatively small tanks.










Another thing I like is the tank of wonderful jellyfish! They are so beautiful. I tried to take a picture of the mini-jelly fish next to the big ones but they are so small and clear that they don't show up in a picture.

Oh, and another really good thing is the tank of sardines in the entry hall! Like thousands of silver comets ...

I want to get a job working there :) When I was a university student, I seriously considered changing courses and study so I could work in a zoo.

Nostalgia

In Japan people use the word 'natsukashi' quite often. It is rather hard to translate it into English, but 'nostalgic' is the best I can do. However, like many one word phrases in Japanese that are used very often to describe feelings, 'natsukashi' (I feel nostalgic) is not something we would say in English!

But anyway, aside from language differences, my topic today is something that does make me feel a little nostalgic ...

I wrote that I went to Kairakuen Park in Mito and that it was my second time there. The first time I went was about 10 years ago, so only a year after I first came to Japan. At that time I was surprised to see black swans gliding about on the lake in the park.

Yesterday I found some again. I presume they are not the same ones but are the offspring of the birds I saw a decade ago. I have no idea why black swans are living in Mito because they are native birds of Australia! (If you don't believe me, do a search on the Internet. Start with a page from the Australian Museum - http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/black_swan.htm).

You can find them in many places in Australia, and as the above web page says, especially in the south. There are many on the Torrens River in Adelaide, South Australia. The Torrens flows through the center of the city, just near the Botanic Gardens and Adelaide University. Sometimes I took my books and studied in the parklands by the river and gave the swans bread from my sandwiches. But I think the Australian swans are larger than the ones in Mito, or maybe my memory just made them larger!

White swans are nice, but I really like black swans which look really elegant and never look dirty. If you have any idea how the black swans came to be in Mito, please write a comment and tell me.

A Day at the Park

Today I suddenly decided to go to Kairakuen Park in Mito. I had only been there once, many years ago, and had never seen the Plum Festival.

Kairakuen is one of the three famous parks in Japan. Sorry, but right now I forget the exact details of them, but I think the one in Kanazawa is called Kourakuen. I went there one winter about 5 years ago and it was beautiful. I have no idea of the name of the third or where it is located. Anyway, Kairakuen in Mito is famous for plum blossoms and there must be thousands of trees in various shades from white to the darkest pink. The air is filled with the delicate fragrance of the blooms.

If you remember a few months ago I said I never wanted to drive to Mito again. Well, today I took the train. Just a local so it took about one hour. I was really surprised because I thought we could get off at Kairakuen Station, one stop south of Mito, but the train passed right through. Why is the station on all maps if the train doesn't stop there? Weird.

We got off at Mito Station and after buying boxed lunches in the station department store, we took a bus to the park. It was so crowded as now is the peak season. Luckily the sky was perfect blue and it was reasonably warm aside from a cold wind in the open.

After walking around, we found a nice spot to have lunch, and these scenic pictures were the view from the bench we sat on. The boxed lunches were really good too!












Finally we decided to walk back to Mito Station. I didn't think it was so far, but it took about 30 minutes (walking kind of slowly!). On the way back we stopped in at a Starbucks and I had a Macha (powdered green tea) Latte. Yum!

Ah, it's now 8:30pm and I'm going to bed! The last two nights I went swimming, then walked for a few hours today - I'm exhausted and my legs are aching! But it was a nice day :)

Very short!

Lately I've been busy with work and organising for a few clubs I am in. This hasn't left much time for swimming or other 'me' things. But yesterday I changed that by going to the hair salon. I went in with 40cm long hair, and came out with less than 5cm!

Yay, my hair is back to the style it was before I married 7 years ago. I love it and feel much younger - like I've returned to my 20s. Not physically possible, I know, but in any case today I feel bright and happy like spring has come :)

Sniff, sneeze, cough

This season many people think they have a cold. Do you have any of these symptoms?
- runny nose
- blocked nose
- dry throat
- dry cough
- headache
- feel tired
- red eyes
- itchy eyes

You might guess from the last two items on the list that these AREN'T the symptoms of a cold but are actually the signs of hayfever, which is prevalent in the early spring.

Most hayfever is caused by an allergy to pollen from either Japanese cedar trees (sugi) or cypress trees (hinoki). Cedars were planted in huge numbers all over Japan after WWII for timber. Those trees are now mature and release vast clouds of pollen this season. 2006 is supposed to have less pollen than last year, which was a record year. Less pollen or not, I am suffering.

The strangest thing about hayfever is it suddenly appears. It doesn't matter how old you are, please don't think "Lucky, I don't suffer from hayfever." That is what I thought until 7 years ago! Then one season, my allergy appeared ...

Nowadays you can get all kinds of medicine to alleviate the symptoms of hayfever but unfortunately there is no cure as yet. The best you can do is try not to come into contact with pollen. If you want to look really funny and suspicious, wear a hat, wrap-around glasses, a gauze mask and an overcoat!

Other than that, you just have to put up with your allergy and hope that May comes really quickly!

symptoms 徴候,症状, 症候
prevalent 広く行き渡った,流行した
vast 非常に広い, 広大な, 途方もなく大きい, 巨大な / （数・量・額が）膨大な, 莫大（ばくだい）な
alleviate 軽減する, 緩和する, 楽にする, 和らげる
put up with -- …を我慢する

Not your average bathroom ...

I adore taking baths and that is certainly one of the attractions of living in Japan. Adult Australians don't use the bath so much - maybe once a week or less. Most people I know just shower every day. Maybe this is a lifestyle choice or maybe it is because water is a precious commodity in Australia. (Though to be honest, taking a long shower probably uses just as much water as having a bath!) Japanese find it disgusting, but Aussies (and other westerners) add soap or bubble bath into the water and don't rinse off afterwards. I was certainly a weird Australian because I liked to have a shower first then use the tub to relax. Mind you, this was not good for either the electricity (hot water) bill or the water bill!

Imagine my joy when I came to Japan and was told by my homestay sister that I had to take a shower first, then after I was clean I could get in the bath. Yay! I was surprised though, because the style of the bathroom was very different...

Take a look at these pictures. This is my parents-in-law's bathroom. Mine is very much the same but has tiled walls instead of molded walls. Tiles look nice but are hard to clean. I suppose the new molded unit style bathrooms are popular because there are no cracks for mold to grow in. (NOTE: 1. mold = shape e.g. jelly mold / 2. mold = fungus e.g. the green stuff that grows in your bathroom if you don't clean it!)

Anyway, the first difference is a Japanese bathroom is in two parts. The outer room is where the wash-stand is and where you change clothes. The washing machine is usually here, too. Then you go through a second door (glass or thick perspex) and into the wet area - perhaps about 2m x 2m in area. The bath is to one side and the remaining area is where you SIT and take a shower.

I don't know the real reason why this is so but my guess is that sitting came from the custom of dipping water out of a large bath to wash yourself. In the old days there were no showers so you had to use a dipper. I don't have one in my bathroom but you can see one in the photos. There is also a plastic seat and basins. If you have a very gorgeous bathroom they are made from wood but I think wood would get moldy.

You actually can stand up to take a shower in modern bathrooms because the shower head is on the end of a hose and it can be fitted into various brackets on the wall at different heights. The new molded type bathrooms have a ledge in front and the hose retracts inside so you can't see it.
But the best part of a Japanese bathroom (or many of them) is that the bathtub is really like a hot-tub. They have automatic temperature settings and will keep the bath water at a constant heat. Imagine being able to take a bath for hours and the water never getting cold!

My sister was surprised once when my bath began to 'talk'. Actually, it wasn't the bath but the control panel on the wall of my kitchen. There are two panels, one in the bathroom and yes, one in the kitchen. This means you can control the bath from the kitchen - very handy for mothers! After you clean the bath from the day before, just put in the plug again and leave it. The next evening you only have to press one button and the bath will automatically fill up to the correct level and temperature. How? Well there is a inlet/outlet in the side of the bath that pumps hot water in and circulates the water through the heater again when the bath cools. I guess the bath takes about 10 minutes to fill and the panel suddenly says "The bath is almost ready." A few minutes later it plays a chime and says "The bath is now ready."

Ah, the wonders of modern technology. If I ever had to go back to Australia, I am sure I would be taking a Japanese bathroom with me!

The Hina Matsuri

March 3rd is the 'Hina Matsuri' doll festival in Japan.

Families with girls display beautiful dolls dressed as emperor, empress, court ladies and musicians from the Heian Era (around 1000 years ago). I don't have any dolls because I wasn't born here to receive them from my parents or grandparents, and I don't have any children. Someday I want to have a daughter so I can display dolls. This year I did have some paper dolls to display thanks to Mr and Mrs K. Mrs K kindly made these lovely origami dolls. The flowers are spring camellias I received yesterday. (Thank you!)

The Hina Matsuri is my favorite festival in Japan because of the dolls and because of cherry tree LEAVES!You might think it is weird, but I LOVE eating cherry leaves! The leaves of one kind of sakura tree are preserved in salt and are used to wrap Japanese sweets made from pounded sticky rice. Inside of the ball is sweet adzuki bean paste. The leaves have a flavor and fragrance that is absolutely wonderful! You can also buy cherry blossom tea, which is full blooms preserved in salt (only blooms and no tea). You add one flower to each cup and it opens when you add hot water. Again the fragrance is heavenly! Cherry blossom tea is served for happy occassions like engagement or wedding ceremonies.

March 3rd is also a day to eat chirashizushi, a kind of mixed rice sushi in a big bamboo dish. I was too busy (and lazy!) to make it, so I bought pre-made boxes. These boxes had half regular sushi and half mixed sushi. The yellow you can see is thinly sliced omlette.

By the way, hina dolls are usually displayed for about a month from early February to March 3rd. However, it is said that the dolls must be quickly put away after the third. Tardy mothers who leave out the dolls mean daughters who can't marry!

tardy - 遅ればせの;〈進歩・成長などが〉遅い,遅々とした

Not so delicious + yummy!

Today we went to an Italian restaurant in Takezono that had been recommended by a few of my friends. We had the set pasta lunch, and I'm sorry to say, that it wasn't really very good.

The pasta was a little overcooked and the sauce was something you could probably do at home by yourself. (Shrimp and chopped shiso leaves, in a salty broth base.)

The bread was interesting. The menu said handmade foccacia. It was light and fluffy, but had quite a strong yeast taste.

I guess we won't go there again, though the service was nice. Finally the waitress who I paid at the register said 'Thank you and we're waiting to see you again'. Sorry!

On the other hand, check out my late afternoon snack. Yum! It is sliced processed cheese sandwiched between a sheet of nori (dried laver sheet). Nori is the dried seaweed that is wrapped around sushi.

You might think it is weird to combine cheese and nori, but try it - it is actually very good! The tastes blend well and the soft texture of the cheese and crisp nori harmonize perfectly. You should eat it quickly and don't let the nori become soggy.

I don't know if anyone else eats this. I thought it up by myself :)

Tired, tired, TIRED!

Japanese people seem to say 'tsukareta' a lot! This can be translated to:

"I'm tired." "I'm worn out." "I'm exhausted!"

I don't think we say these things in English quite so much but today I really am tired!

This past week has just been a blur. Last Thursday morning I worked, right after I went to Tokyo and took a plane to Kagoshima, my husband's hometown. Three days there and back to Tokyo then Tsukuba. Work on Monday ....

Sometimes I think we need a second holiday to get over the exhaustion from the first one!!! Hmm, I'd like to go to a nearby hotspring and laze about all day :)

in a blur - あっという間に,目にも止まらない速さで
laze about/around - のらくらする,怠ける

All the way to China

How far can you swim? If you'd like to make a new world record, you could try swimming from my husband's hometown to Shanghai. All you need to do is go directly west for ummm, I actually have no idea! Look on a world map and find Kaseda in Kagoshima on the island of Kyushu in Japan then trace your finger to the left and you will hit Shanghai, China. If you need to visualise it, picture yourself on this beach and imagine swimming for a few days!

My husband's hometown is not Kaseda City, but Kinpo Town. I should say 'was' because in fact several municipalities merged and now it is all called 'Minami Satsuma City'. This beach is called 'Fukiage' (吹上浜) and is 47km long! That makes it the second longest stretch of sand in Japan. Fukiage Town doesn't exist any longer either; now it is part of Hioki City. But despite the name changes, the beach remains the same. (This is the view to the south toward Makurazaki and the next picture is to the north, toward Kushikino.)


The beach itself is very beautiful and unspoiled. I can't exactly explain why, but the sea itself is different to the Pacific side where I have spent all my time in Japan. I guess one reason is that this beach is facing the South China Sea rather than the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean. I haven't seen huge waves at Fukiage. Another major difference is that there are NO people! And no surfers. To take these pictures I hiked 5 minutes through pine tree scrub-land then up sand dunes. Getting down the other side of the dune was not very ladylike; I slid about 10m down on my backside! Oh, and to get to the point were we left the car was a bit of a drive. If you ever decide to go to Fukiage Beach, try going from Fukiage Town camping ground - it is quite a civilized walk from there!

I love this beach but the first time I went with my husband, he said we had to go home soon. He said that someone had been abducted from Fukiage Beach by North Korean agents a few decades ago. I just laughed and said what a tall story! I wasn't laughing about 4 years ago when Nth Korea admitted one of the Japanese they abducted was taken from here. (When I first married the abduction issue was very quiet and I didn't even know about it.) Anyway, I can guess that no-one is going to abduct you these days, but it is a very lonely spot, especially in the winter. You can see why in this last picture - in the foreground is grass on the sand dunes, then the pine scrub. In the distance you can see the peak of Mount Kinpo and its surrounding mountains.

If you have time, do a search on Kaseda City and Fukiage Beach. It is not well known, but in WWII, Fukiage had its own air base. (Chiran, about an hour's drive away is much more famous.) Anyway, no matter where the pilots flew from, it is horribly depressing. I went to Chiran about 7 years ago and couldn't go inside the main building of the Chiran War Memorial Park. But a few years ago I went to a small Fukiage museum by chance. (The Bansei Tokkou Heiwa Kinenkan) I had tears running down my face as I looked at the photos of pilots as young as 15 and 16 years old who flew out to their deaths. I wonder what they thought as they looked at Fukiage from the air for the last time? Boys recruited from all over Japan who should have never even left their homes let alone fly for thousands of miles across the Pacific. I left that museum sobbing and refuse to go to another one ever again. I know the young must remember the war so it never happens again, but I can't bear to even think that some of those handsome young faces look so much like my husband's.

Just as an aside, I cannot understand how Mr. Koizumi can support America in Iraq. Somewhere in America there will be (or maybe there already is) a museum with faces of fresh young Americans who left home to go to a place they would never come home from. Why are people so stupid?

Just some trivia, but Mr. Koizumi's father, Junya, was born in Kaseda.


If you'd like to know more about Minami Satsuma City, please check -->
http://www.city.minamisatsuma.lg.jp/kanko/area1.htm

Twenty-one Days

Well, my Snow Bear lasted 21 days. This is what remained of it last Saturday morning, the 21st day after the heavy snowfall.

Um, yes, this post is now over a week late but I've been doing lots. Please read the next entries .....

P.S. If you have no idea what my Snow Bear even was, please check the archives on this page for the snow entry on Jan 21.

'Revolving' Sushi ...

What do you imagine from the name 'revolving' sushi? (kaiten-zushi in Japanese). If you're thinking about a piece of sushi spinning around like a top, guess again!

Kaiten-zushi can't easily be translated into English but how about: plates of sushi on a conveyor belt that customers can select by themselves. Hmm. Just look at the picture!


More upmarket restaurants have conveyor belt moving in a large square. Customers sit at booths or a counter on the outside and choose any dish they like. Sushi chefs are in the middle and prepare new dishes. You can also check the daily menu or regular menu and order sushi directly from the chef closest to you. You might shout something like 'fatty tuna' or 'sweet shrimp'. I prefer ordering directy because it means your sushi is really fresh and hasn't dried out at all. Plus I like the combination of cold fish and warm rice!

All of the dishes are color coded, so choosing sushi on a white plate means it costs 120yen, ranging up in price to black dishes at about 500yen or gold dishes at about 700yen. You stack up the dishes and at the end a waitress counts how many of each color you have and tallies up the bill. My favorite of this kind of kaiten zushi is Yamato.

The pictures in this post come from a different kind of restaurant. ALL dishes cost 105yen so you don't have to worry about which ones you choose. The only difference is some sushi has wasabi (Japanese horseradish) and some doesn't. That's why the stack of dishes has two different colors. In cheap restaurants, the chefs stay in a kitchen out the back and the belt has booths or counters on both sides. I guess some staff are trained chefs, but believe it or not, nowadays there are machines that squeeze out sushi rice balls. That is why the price is lower, and of course the fish is mostly smaller and not of the best quality. If you want to order something you use an intercom that is fitted to your booth.

But a new restaurant in Tsukuba, Hamazushi, has gone one step further. Each booth has a touch pad screen like you can find on an ATM at the bank. You simply press the picture of which sushi you want. When it comes the screen beeps to let you know you have to get it. Specially ordered sushi have numbers and are raised up on dishes so that no-one else grabs them!

And most restaurants have other dishes as well as sushi. Hamazushi has really good mango pudding.Finally, if you check the top picture again you can see a metal thing in the middle of the picture. This is an outlet for hot water to make green tea. You put powdered tea into a cup and press it against the black button and hot water comes out.

revolve - 回転する
top - こま
conveyor belt - 流れ作業用運搬ベルト
upmarket - 高級品市場向けの,高所得層向けの
color code - 色で塗り分ける
tally up - …を勘定［計算，総計］する

Chai

I'm a bit of a tea fanatic! I've always liked traditional 'English' tea - black tea served with milk and sugar, and drink one to three cups a day. And I'm kind of fussy about tea, so if I come to your house, be sure to make good quality strong tea then add full cream milk :)

Actually, I'm probably addicted to tea because if I can't drink it for a few days, I begin to really crave it. Of course I always have tea (several kinds!) at my house, but my parents in law only have green tea. After a few days I go to a convenience store to buy tea bags .... I don't care if I don't have coffee for a few weeks, but I MUST have tea!

Australians think it is weird but I also like cold tea. I often used to let a cup of tea go cold so I could drink it later and my family members would almost always try to tip it down the sink. I was so surprised when I came to Japan and found that cold tea with milk is sold in bottles! Wow! I like the Kirin brand but it is a little too sweet. Another nice tea is by Lipton and is carbonated.

Another thing I discovered in Japan is 'royal milk tea' or 'tea au lait'. It is made by simmering tea leaves or bags in some hot water, then adding milk and bringing the mix to the boil again. I'm sure most people know about coffee milk but I had never heard of 'royal milk tea'. Now I love it and make it quite often.

My latest discovery is Chai I can make at home. I always choose chai when I go to Indian restaurants but could never make the same taste at home. But a few weeks ago I found 'tea marsala' spice powder at New Mira. It has spices like cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, pepper, black pepper, cardamom and bay. You can add it to regular tea or for a richer taste, to 'royal milk tea'.

Wonders of Nature

My favorite book is 'The Pillow Book' (Makura no Shoshi) by Sei Shonagon. Someday I'll write about it in more detail, but basically it was the journal of a court lady in the Japanese Imperial Household more than 1000 years ago. She had a wonderful dry wit and quite a sharp tongue!

One story I remember well is the tale of a 'Snow Mountain'. After an unusually heavy snowfall in old Kyo (now Kyoto), the ladies and children made a snow mountain. The women then bet how long it would take for the mountain to melt. Shonagon decided a date quite far into the future and the other ladies laughed saying it would surely be gone by then. It seems the ladies checked the slowing dwindling mountain every day, and day by day the other ladies lost the bet. Finally the day that Shonagan guessed drew near and she was excited to win the game. The night before there was still quite a lot of snow left, however on the date she guessed, she went outside to find the mountain gone. The other ladies laughed and said she lost the game, too.

In the end Shonagon found the truth that the other ladies decided to play a trick on her and asked some men to trample on the mountain and remove it! Whether out of spite or just in fun, it seemed the other ladies couldn't stand that Shonagon would win the game.

Remember more than two weeks ago I wrote about my snow bear and my husband's snow man? If you go back in this blog you can see pictures. Well, like Shongon's mountain, my creation has refused to disappear! We have had warm days and even two days of rain, but a small mound remains. It is a pity, but there is nothing left of the snowman. I am betting that some of my bear will still be there on Saturday (the day after tomorrow) which will make it 3 weeks since the snow fall. In the picture you can see what remained this morning. It was really windy today so now about half has melted. And tomorrow will be warmer. Hmmm.

Lastly, look at this wonderful ice crystal I found in the ground. I never saw these in Australia. They can grow to a few centimeters around here and it is fun to stamp on them and listen to them crunch! I am not sure, but maybe they are called 'koori bashira' in Japanese. (ice pillars)

'Most Confusing' Award

The winner of the 'Most Confusing City' award has to go to Mito in Ibaraki!

Yesterday I had to attend a meeting in Mito and unfortunately public transport wasn't an option because neither the bus nor train timetables matched my meeting time. After thinking about it for a week or so, I decided to drive and carefully checked maps for the best route. I found that I only had to take one main road after exiting the highway, then turn right into the street where the meeting was being held.

Everything went okay until that final right turn. NO TURNING RIGHT! Oooh. Okay so go another block. OH NO!!! It was a trunk road with no exits and it lead in a big loop around to Kairakuen Park. It took almost 30 minutes to get back again!

Why? Well, Mito is an old city so the planning was good a few centuries ago. Now it is a maze of one way streets, narrow streets, bad drivers, weird directions and to make matters worse, construction! It only took 40 minutes on the highway from Tsukuba to Mito, but 30 minutes to find my way to the Mito International Association building! :(

Thank you so much to the nice hair stylist who came running outside when I parked in front of his salon. Actually, I must admit he probably ran outside because I just turned the wrong way down a one way street. But I only went 3 meters to park in front of the salon. Luckily he was kind and sent me in the right direction.

Am I going to drive to Mito ever again? NO I DON'T THINK SO!!!!!

Lunch was really yummy though! Despite it being very old, the sushi restaurant on the top floor of the old Keisei Department building had great rice topped with raw salmon.

Bean's Throwing Day

Today is 'Setsubun' the dividing day between seasons in the ancient calendar. You can read all about it at a different blog:
http://worldkigodatabase.blogspot.com/2006/07/setsubun-festival-february-3.html

Basically, you throw roasted soy beans and shout 'Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi'. (Out with the devil/demon and in with good fortune.) Then you get to eat as many beans as you are years old. I got a mask from the supermarket, but it looks more like a cat than a demon!

Another tradition that seems to be more modern is eating really big sushi rolls. Check them out in the picture!